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To say that getting my hair cut and colored at the José Eber Salon at 284 Millburn Ave, Millburn, NJ was a luxurious experience would be a gross understatement. On a mission from A Madison Mom to write about the experience, I gave them free reign over my tresses and ended up having a great time.

The salon is a grand place, gorgeous in its scope and spaciousness, and I was greeted warmly by one of their extremely helpful and glamorous employees.

This place is GORGEOUS

Mr. Eber himself was there for the day observing and giving consultations, and I found him down to business and someone who truly delights in his work. “What is your lifestyle” was the first thing he said to me, and when I told him I was a bit of a funky free spirit, he told me immediately, “this haircut is too old for you. We will make you fresh and young, with very vibrant color. Does this interest you?” I heartily agreed, because when José Eber tells you what your hair should be doing, you do it.

So off to get shampooed I went, and then to Yoav Tauber, the master stylist, for a preliminary cut. Off came months and months of grown out and two toned hair (I have a bit of an obsession with hair dye) and I learned that Yoav had studied under Mr. Eber himself in Beverly Hills before opening the salon here in New Jersey.

My hair cut to a piecey pixie, I was whisked off to Creative Colorist Nicole Dapuzzo, a delightful and bubbly woman who described how she was going to remove the black dye from the bottom half of my hair before coloring it a rich purple. Having never had bleach in my hair, I was a bit nervous, but Nicole was wonderful.

A deep conditioning treatment and the coloring followed. Afterwards, I was brought back to Yoav, who finished my haircut. It was a big change, and I have to say that I loved every second of the process. The staff was lovely, and the salon was spotlessly clean and beautiful. All around me were women and men getting fabulous haircuts and color, and everyone looked very happy indeed.

I would highly recommend the José Eber Salon to anyone who wants to be pampered for a day. I give all my thanks to Mr. Eber and his team for a fantastic experience. Getting an experience like this doesn’t happen to me pretty much ever, so this was super exciting and fun!

Common Sense: Will you just SIT DOWN AND WRITE SOMETHING?
Me: Yup.
CS: You’re looking at tattoo ideas.
Me: Yup.
CS: THAT’S NOT WRITING.
Me: Yup.
CS: Are you even listening to me?
Me: Yup.
CS: ARE YOU LYING?
Me: Yup.

So that’s basically what’s been going on since the 12th of whenever. I get all these spectacular ideas, usually when my sleep meds are just kicking in, and I swear to myself that I’ll remember them, and I never do, and the blog gathers even yet still more dust and GAH, WHATEVER.

Seriously, this sullen angst is not a good look on me. I’m far too old to be bellyaching about writing. As a dancer dances, a writer writes. In this particular case, the writer writes about writing, which, hello, meta and overplayed, but what do you want from me, I’m getting back in the swing of things.

Okay, quick recap:

The world has gone to hell. My health went to hell. I got better. Psych meds are good. Donald Trump is a worm-ridden yam with teeth. The holidays are upon us. I can’t write about the goddamn snow because New Jersey has not had a day colder than 60 degrees yet. Tiny and Small continue to be awesome, and they will hopefully freak RIGHT OUT at their Christmas presents. Holden and I are nauseatingly happy in our weird, long distance, nerdy love. Say hi to the nice blog people, Holden.

I learned the hard way that I am not mentally and emotionally able to work yet. I tried, I failed, I’ll try again someday. I lost a lot of people this year. Too many. One would have been too many, of course, but fuck, man. I lost a LOT of people. I gained some people too. Good, fine, upstanding people who help me keep my head on straight.

GodDAMMIT, I hate for this to be a post about nothing, but my brain has been fuzzy lately since I started a new mood stabilizer but the side effects seem to be subsiding.

OKAY. I’m signing off. Consider this a placeholder. And get on my ass if I don’t get back here soon, okay? I need to get my groove back.

Do you hear the people sing?
Lost in the valley of the night,
It is the music of a people
who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise

I was challenged to write a short fiction based on the prompt “What Christine Told Me” and this is what I came up with. I hope you like it, fiction is not my forte.

“So you’ve been out and about again, eh?”
“Ah yeah. That’s kinda what I do.”
“Things been pretty tough at home.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“World’s going to feckin’ hell.”
“That’s why I wander.”
“Cause the quote, right? Not all are lost and all that?”
“Not all.”
“That’s lovely, really. I wish I could wander.”
“What’s keeping you from it?”
“Christine, I’m not brave like you.”
“That’s shite. We’re all braver than we think.”
“You still wear those awful concert t-shirts?”
“Well you gave them to me, didn’t you? It’s not like I’m gonna throw them out.”
“You still think of us? I mean…”
“Of course.”
“Really? Even me?”
“They talk about flings and experimentations, and I don’t think they realize that those are important too. They’re all part of the circle, luv.”
“If you break out into “The Lion King” I will punch you in the tit.”
“You haven’t changed.”
“You have. Look at you. You have little laugh lines.”
“I don’t sit at home moisturizing, you know.”
“We’re getting old.”
“It’s grand. I’ve met 101 year old women who are perfect in every way.”
“Tell me more, Christine.”
“In time. We have all night.”
“So we do. So we do.”

Hi everyone! This is an old post I wrote for MamaPop, but I am literally falling apart at the seams and need some time for new content. Please to enjoy.
>>>>>>>>>>
I am going to get vicious hatemail for this, but I simply cannot stay silent any longer. It’s time for an intervention, and I happen to be RILLY good at those. Nicholas Sparks? It’s time to put down the pen.

Dear Nick:Can I call you Nick? I feel close to you, Nick, and there is something I have to say to you as a fellow scribe, certainly not one of your fame and fortune, but one who also puts pen to paper to entertain the masses. Nick? It’s time to stop writing. Your newest book to be made into a movie, The Last Song, opens this week, and the commercial alone was so cloying, so overly saccharine, that I now have three new cavities. I don’t have dental insurance, Nick.
It’s not that you’re a bad person, Nick. It’s that you’ve made some very poor choices in the genre you have chosen in the literary field. You make girls and women weep hysterically and men crawl under the movie theater seats. You give the women you create mystery diseases and have them die beautifully, which, hey, I’m as big a fan of Wuthering Heights as the next lassie, but what you do is not great literature. It’s simplistic writing that does not embrace the reader, but demeans them. And the movies are even worse…Nick, they’re ALL going to be movies, aren’t they? Wonderful. Gak. What you write is trite, cloyingly sweet GARBAGE and you make millions off of it. I am, frankly, shocked that you have not been attacked by a horde of the heterosexual male partners of your female fans, since they are the ones who must endure the waxing and heavy sobs of their girlfriends and wives as you grip them so tightly in your claws of predictable, cliché, self-satisfying tripe.Listen. I watch bad movies. I love a good romance. But you seem hell (sorry, “heck”) bent on insulting your readers by giving them cookie-cutter tragic romances over and over and over again instead of stepping a tiny bit away from your box and trying something a little deeper,or developing your characters a bit more than this shit (sorry! “stuff”) you could find in any 14-year-old girl’s imagination diary she’s writing about that boy in Geometry class. It all makes me just a little ill

So please, Nick, put down the pen. Step away from the computer. You’ve made your fortune, and this weekend women will drag their partners to the theaters to see Miley Cyrus fall in fated love just like all your other “heroines” who all lack a spine and a brainstem, (but have a heart of gold!) and we’ll all learn a Very Important Lesson about love, and you’ll laugh your ass off all the way to the bank. AGAIN.

I’m not doing this to be an asshole (SORRY! “meanie”) to you as a person and a fellow writer, Nick. I’m doing this because you OBVIOUSLY have writing talent, I mean, you’ve published and made a fortune off this stuff. But you’re not doing feminism any good and, seriously, the poor regular dudes and women who have to endure these for their significant others? They’re going to come at you with pitchforks someday, man.

I’m doing this out of a caring, warm place in my heart, Nick. Take up auto-repair or something and write about that. You’ve exhausted your chosen genre

Quick story, and then I’m done, I swear. When I was in rehab, a dvd of The Notebook was played in our common room over and over and over until there was ANARCHY and someone threatened to drink drain cleaner. Luckily, one of the more physically violent patients smashed the dvd into a bazillion pieces. Man, we were lucky the gate had a padlock on it, because that flick will send someone into the deepest, darkest streets to score any junk that will erase that crap from his or her brain.

Hey, remember when I was all “wah, I’m never going to get a job, everything sucks, waaaaaaaaah!!!”? Well…

I got a job.

Details to follow, but I will be writing. For money. A real writing job. I am over the freaking moon. Every once and a while I think of it and I go like this.

It’s a good scream, really.

Other than the jobby job, the other interesting thing that happened this week was that I was weaseled into going to the ER because I fell down (surprise) and hurt myself (wicked surprise) and hurt my foot. NOW. In any other circumstance, I would have gone to the bathroom, cleaned myself off, stopped all bleeding, and gone on with my day. But OH NO. I fell on hospital grounds. And when you fall on hospital grounds, everyone AT said hospital thinks “$$$$$ SUE LAWSUIT MONEY $$$$$” so I was cajoled into going to the ER for my undoubtedly broken (shattered! Destroyed beyond repair!) foot. I was able to take many pictures, like this one:

Not part of Thursday’s plan.

Aaaaaaaaaand this one…

DEFINITELY NOT PART OF THE PLAN.

So they wrapped me up and said it was a severe sprain and gave me crutches and the whole nine yards. Guess what? It’s Sunday and I have NO pain. I have NO swelling. I am FINE. I got schnookered by the damn hospital. If I receive even ONE bill, I will be sending it directly back to the hospital with a YouTube video of me dancing a jig whilst singing “You’ll Never Get A Penny From Me” which is a song I just made up.

Across from me in the ER was a 17 year old kid who decided to take his motorbike out mere hours before his prom, and wiped out gloriously, giving him road rash ALL over his body. It was pretty gruesome. His mom was shrieking that she was going to destroy the motorbike, and his waifish little girlfriend was positively green with all the gore and kept heaving and wailing “The the the…the PROM is RUINED wah wah wah wah” and had to be escorted out lest she barf all over her mangled boyfriend. It was great. Better than cable.

OH RELAX. The kid was fine. You could tell he was like “I am the manliest man who ever manned” and wanted to know exactly how many stitches he was getting, no doubt so he could brag about it to all his bros. Hilarious.

On Mangled Biker’s side, there was a sweet little boy who had fallen and broken his wrist. He was very brave, but put on a hobble when they were leaving, “I can’t walk, my wrist hurts” he bravely whimpered. I would have given him a lollypop if I was the doctor. Extreme lack of lollypops in the ER.

So that’s the story. My foot is fine. The hospital sucks for putting me through all that nonsense for NOTHING, and I got a job. It all works out in the end.

Ahoy, my beloved little squirrels! I am here, have no fear. The last couple of weeks have been rather dull, just shopping my resume around and hoping for the best. However, something might be in the works, so keep those squirrelly fingers crossed for your old pal Miss B, will you? Thanks!

Anyway, things have been pretty great. Squirrel Boy and I watched “Midnight Cowboy” this morning because that’s how we roll, and it erased all grumpiness about the job hunt because hey, things could be worse. I could be Ratso Rizzo. Maybe that should be my new mantra. “At least I’m not Ratso Rizzo.” Works on so many levels, right? I’m not dying of TB or hustling in 1979 Manhattan and both my feet currently work. And I’m much taller than Ratso. Oh whatever, stay with me on this one.

Clumsy segway!

I have finally staggered into the 21st century and acquired an iPhone. It was an early birthday present, and I love it. So shiny! So electronic! No more looks of horror and pity at my ancient dumbphone! I swear, I was with a few 20-somethings the other day and whipped out my old phone and they all were aghast. “How do you LIVE???” they shrieked. Actually I was fine, but I’ve had the iPhone for about 24 hours and I don’t know how I lived without it. I know this is old news for absolutely everyone, but it’s new to me! Yay!

I’ve also been crocheting up a storm, and if you are interested in purchasing a hand made circular afghan, let me know. Here’s my latest handiwork.

SO PRETTY!!!!!

The video shoot for Project UROK was fabulous. I got to meet the founders of the project and talk about self-harm, which I am intimately associated with, and I hope that we can reach kids who are in crisis to let them know that they are never alone, no matter how awful things are right now. It’s the most important project I’ve ever been a part of, and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

So that’s about it. I hope to have something good to tell you tomorrow, so keep your fingers (and toes, and eyes) crossed (don’t really do that, you’ll fall the hell down) for me!